Council Tax Benefit and Housing Benefit

Islington council tax benefit and housing benefit service promises to:

Set and Maintain High Standards of Customer Service

We have set high standards of customer service that you can expect us to deliver.

For more details, click on the Customer Care Standards link on the right under Related Information.

Treat You with Dignity and Respect

When you use our service you can expect to be treated with dignity and respect at all times, regardless of your age, colour, disability, gender, faith, religion, nationality, race, sexuality, marital status, HIV or other health status.

For more details, click on the Dignity For All link on the right under Related Information

Pay the Right Benefit First Time On Time

We are committed to taking every step we can to award your correct entitlement on time.

We make regular checks to ensure that claims are dealt with correctly and quickly. This happens to ensure that we award correct entitlement to housing benefit and council tax benefit in accordance with the law. If you think we have made a mistake you can contact us.

For details of how to contact us, click on the link on the left under Main Menu.

Listen to Comments and Complaints and seek to Resolve Them

Complaints are treated very seriously. If you are unhappy about the housing and council tax benefit service or want to make a suggestion, you should first talk to us, we will try to sort out the problem without you having to make a complaint.

For details of how to contact us, click on the How to Contact Us link on the left under Main Menu

For more details about how to complain, click on the Complaints link on the right under related information.

Apologise Where We Get it Wrong and Put it Right

Even when our intention is to get it right, sometimes we get it wrong. If we get it wrong we will apologise and we will put it right. We will correct our mistake within 24 hours of receiving all the information we need to put it right.

If you are overpaid housing benefit or receive excess council tax benefit because of a mistake, you may have to pay back the overpayment. If we write to you that you have been overpaid, you should check that our decision is correct, ask for an explanation, ask us to reconsider our decision or appeal against our decision.

For more details, click on the Disagreeing with Our Decision link on the left under Main Menu.

Do All We Reasonably Can to Protect the Public Funds

We are fully committed to doing all we reasonably can to protect the public funds that we handle on behalf of the residents of Islington and central government. We employ a team of professionally trained fraud investigators and intervention officers, tasked with detecting and deterring fraud and preventing fraud from entering the housing benefit system. If you suspect that someone may be committing fraud, we can stop it from happening, there are several ways in which you can report your suspicions to us without revealing your identity.

For more details about how to report suspicions, click on the Fraud link on the left under Main Menu.